In my honest opinion, the online is bad for 1 reason. you start out at 0 with cash. it took me a full week of playing 6 hours a day to get up the money for just a damn garage, let alone an apartment. plus that stimulus never came in so i have a garage and now where to play out heists thatll make me a lot of money, im stuck doing **** work, for like 2000$ a pop, getting murdered cause i aint no puss that puts on neutral mode, and not really getting anywhere with my leveling and money.

Or, you know, just do a lot of races and missions and earn a lot of money. Get to know someone who's a high level and ask them if they may invite you to high rank jobs so you can earn money quicker. I do lots of jobs where I get $25k more or less, and I can easily get $400k in just a few hours. I also recommend that if you're a racer, you get a garage that fits 10 vehicles (the $400k apartment for example) and get one vehicle of each kind, like the best/fastest super car (Adder), fastest sedan/4-door (Sultan), best sports classic (z-type), best motorcycle (bati), and so on, and upgrade them, then do a lot of races where custom vehicles are enabled; and then, if lucky, others won't have as good vehicles as you and you can easily win races.

There are so many factors to follow to easily get money, but I just recommend doing missions, and when your rank is over 50, things will get much easier for you.